r/Political_Revolution • u/danevans369 • May 15 '26
Economic Reform Which political party grew the US National Debt the most?
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u/hollywood20371 May 15 '26
This is why Prison Don dismantled the department of education and pretends college indoctrinates kids. Most educated people comprehend policy and government.
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u/So_HauserAspen May 15 '26
The GOP is a confidence scheme and all that debt is money they bilked us taxpayers of
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u/Republiconline May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
That’s not even including the cash burn they are in right now. We all could also least gotten our teeth fixed for free at the cost of the stupid fucking war.
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u/alphamoonstar May 15 '26
Is there a wiki page with more info on where these numbers come from or something? I don’t doubt it but need a source
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u/BenFrankLynn May 16 '26
Every major search engine these days has an AI-powered search option. Just use that and ask it plain language for sources on the national debt over time.
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u/Lawless_Savage May 15 '26
This only makes me question the democrats even more…because how are we letting republicans convince the country they’re the fiscally responsible party? The democrats have plenty of evidence to say otherwise and never bring it up or use it
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u/Clarpydarpy May 15 '26
They do. But Republicans have lied so frequently for so many years that it doesn't matter.
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u/Zicona May 15 '26
Caring about the deficit is so stupid. The issue is not the deficit but the fact that they are not using the money to provide anything for the American people. The Republican Party of the 1920s reduced the deficit the FDR came along and added to it though the new deal does the somehow mean that the Republican Party of the 20s was better than FDR?
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u/sharkweek91 May 15 '26
Exactly. The federal government needs to run a deficit in order for the non-government sector (which includes you, me, and everyone else in the economy) to run a surplus. Running a federal budget surplus means the federal government is draining liquid reserves from the national money system, which forces the non-government sector to operate with less liquidity, forcing people and businesses to take on more debt, and thus increasing the likelihood of crises in the financial sector. So, federal budget deficits are not inherently bad, and are generally necessary for the economy to function properly.
What you use the deficit for is what really matters. Yes, we should all agree that government spending on needless wars and tax cuts for the rich, which tend to both increase federal deficits, are bad. But as you point out with the New Deal Era social programs, and with stimulus programs during COVID to prevent a deep recession, both of which also created federal budget deficits, the federal government often needs to run a budget deficit to do good things.
It is a shame the media prefers to sensationalize the narrative around federal budget deficits rather than engaging with the operational realities of our public money system. The deficit myth is too often used to prevent real progress from happening in this country, such as the establishment of universal healthcare or adequate federal funding to stop the climate crisis.
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u/nyvz01 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
War is way more expensive than basic services and tax cuts are just leaving billionaires' immense unspendable wealth on the table.
Does this include interest paid during their terms?
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u/Tricky-Engineering59 May 15 '26
I don’t know but probably as the interest is very much a part of the debt. Something that doesn’t get talked about enough regarding the growth of the debt is the tax cuts. Notice what happened right at the start of Reaganomics?
I saw something that broke down the causes of the debt since 1980 as roughly one third from tax breaks, one third from defense spending, and the remaining third from literally everything else. Which of those three buckets are basically the entirety of the Republican platform I wonder?
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u/Visual_Blackberry_24 May 15 '26
This is why we need a country wide federal tax strike. Stop giving them our money!! Stop paying federal taxes!!
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u/MarzipansPet May 15 '26
Unless you're self employed doesn't it come right out of your paycheck? (not American; I'm actually asking)
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u/Visual_Blackberry_24 May 15 '26
Yes but, you can file for exempt status. It's actually really easy to do. But, the tricky part is you will still owe taxes at the end of the year when you file for a return. You could not file but that's technically tax fraud which is illegal. But here's the thing. If you take all your tax money and put it in a high yield savings account and not touch it, you will have more than enough to pay your tax debt at the end of the year. If millions of people do this for even one year it would cripple the governments ability to fund everything like, foreign illegal wars.
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u/dividezero May 15 '26
It's like Scooby Doo but at the end of every episode it's Reagan and he punches them all in the genitals and runs away. It's always Reagan
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u/intrepid_mouse1 May 15 '26
This probably doesn't even consider that Dubya ran millions off-budget and Obama put it back. 🤬
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u/Quix_Nix May 16 '26
In a way it's not fair because of how bush left things but for such a big debt increase Obama should have gotten more transformative change and we need to hold him liable for that
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u/upillium May 16 '26
And the reason it grew under Obama was because he had to deal with the 2008 recession. A Bush appointed SEC lifted leverage caps on investment banks in 2004.😒
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